“Am I gonna be okay?”
“Of course. Of course you are! Just breathe,” I said, as calmly as possible, smoothing her hair off her sweaty face.
“Hold on, honey. I’m gonna get you there as fast as I can,” Carruthers said as he pushed on the gas.
Tracina turned to me. “I’m an awful person,” she whispered, tears falling down her cheeks. “I feel so awful.”
“Don’t worry about anything else right now except this baby, okay?” I felt her hand tighten in mine, saw her eyes squeeze shut.
I turned around and spotted Will’s truck behind us, weaving perilously, trying to keep up. Poor Will. If this proved to be true, if he really wasn’t the baby’s father, it’d gut him. Despite all the drama and uncertainty that surrounded the pregnancy, the only thing Will had ever seemed sure of was his devotion to this baby.
Carruthers was driving fast, but every once in a while he checked on Tracina via the rearview mirror. “You’re gonna be okay, baby. You’re gonna be okay.”
Tracina never answered, her clammy hand gripped in mine, nothing registering on her face now except waves of pain.
We made it to the Touro Birthing Center in record time; Carruthers had called ahead on a hands-free phone so a nurse was standing by with an empty wheelchair. Once Tracina was in the chair, she reached up, looking around for me, and grabbed my hand.
“Cassie, stay with Will. He’s gonna need a friend,” she said.
What? Had I heard her right? She let go of my hand, and reached for Carruthers’ as she was wheeled into the center.
I found my way to the delivery area waiting room. A few minutes later Will came huffing in, eyes wild, a line of sweat down the middle of his T-shirt.
“Where’d they go?”
“Down there,” I said, “but I don’t think—”
He didn’t wait for me to finish. He busted through the doors and disappeared down the hall. I was so jangly already that the vibrating in my purse didn’t register at first as a phone call. I answered over the sound of a loud and braying intercom announcement, plugging my ear to hear better.
“Hey, lady. Where y’at? Sounds like the racetrack. Don’t bet your whole paycheck.”
It was Jesse, his voice mellow and grounding.
I explained the baby shower, the early labor, the dramatic drive, the empty waiting room in maternity where I was now taking over a few seats. I stopped short of saying I was sitting vigil while a delicate paternity question was about to come to a head. A nurse pointed to my phone and then to a sign behind her: CELL PHONES NOT PERMITTED IN EMERGENCY. STEP OUTSIDE TO TALK. I lifted my index finger, the universal symbol for Just one minute.
“So, I guess dinner and a movie are out of the question,” he said.
“I should stay here.”
“You’re a good friend,” he said. “Hey, I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah? About what?”
“About you and …”
Oh dear. Why did my heart clench?
“And …?”
“And me. And the fact that I’m glad you got in touch. I didn’t know it until now. But I think I might’ve been waiting for a girl like you.”
I was stunned.
“Too cheesy?” he asked.
“A little. But … I like cheese. What about our ‘no expectations’ plan?”
“You didn’t expect me to follow that plan, did you?”
I laughed. Now was not the time to get into it with him. I told him I’d call him later, and then I hung up and shut off my phone.
Just when you think you have things figured out, a stranger shows up at a stupid baby shower and threatens to change everything. And that’s only what I was feeling. I could only imagine what was going through Will’s and Tracina’s minds. Carruthers, on the other hand, seemed to have made his mind up before he knocked.
I stared at the double doors. The only certainty now was that whoever came bursting out first would tell me something that might change … well, everything. But right now, all I knew was that Jesse Turnbull was in. He was all the way in. Isn’t that what I wanted?
18
DAUPHINE
WE PROBABLY SHOULD have left immediately when Mark and I realized that not only that I was leaving S.E.C.R.E.T., but I was taking him with me. There were house phones everywhere, in every room we visited. We could have called someone, anyone. We could have summoned the car or Claudette … or phoned Matilda. Or we could have simply left the Mansion.
Instead, after our tumble in the Domino Suite, we were both hit with a weird, giddy second wind. When he offered to take me on a secret tour of the Mansion, including some of the rooms in which he’d been trained, I threw on a bathrobe, totally game.
“Lead the way, Romeo,” I said.
I saw the lushly decorated Emperor’s Room with its one-way mirror, and something called the Den, with what looked like S & M equipment strewn about.
“Are you into this stuff?” I asked nervously (excitedly?), fingering a table with leather restraints, not sure which answer I wanted to hear.
He shrugged. “I feel like with you I could be into anything,” he said, scooping me up and carrying me out of the room backwards.
“I think you’re right about that.” I dipped down to kiss his mouth—those lips! I didn’t want details about his escapades any more than he wanted details of mine; the only thing we cared about now was how our experiences would benefit each other.
My favorite room in the whole house was the Harem Room in the basement, with its brass stripper pole, massive floor cushions and indoor hot tub.
“What did you learn down here? How to be a sheik?” I teased, spinning around the pole once, twice, until he convinced me to open my robe and do a little bump and grind for him, while he lay back on the cushions stroking himself.
“No touching,” I said, turning around and bending over to agonize him.
It was all so fun with Mark, so silly, so joy-filled!
It’s true, we probably should have let someone know. Instead, we soaked for a half hour in that hot tub; then, wrapped back up in those handy bathrobes, we raided the bar fridge, grabbing water and fruit meant for cocktails (mostly orange and pineapple halves and maraschino cherries) and headed up a different flight of stairs, this one leading to the workers’ quarters on the third floor. At the end of that hall, we came upon a cozy, pretty bedroom with exposed brick walls, its pine floors painted white, and wicker furniture placed strategically about. It reminded me of a guest room in a lovely seaside cottage. We climbed into the high bed, pulled the heavy eyelet duvet over our sex-battered bodies and talked. I told him a little about my past, my fears, and how Luke and his stupid book had put such a dent in my confidence.
Instead of offering to punch Luke in the face, he said he’d write a song to set the record straight.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “I am so seriously over it.”
“Then that’s what the song’s gonna be about.”
And then we slept deeply, surrounded by downy pillows, orange peels and at least four empty bottles of water.
In the morning, we had sex one more time, tenderly, slowly, my legs covered in tiny bruises from his hands. He lifted them this way and that, his hip bones thrusting, but tenderly, moving so beautifully, our bodies made for each other. Entwining his fingers with mine, he flipped me on top of him as my head dropped back, and I rode him as carefully as I could, as his fingers traveled over my breasts, down my stomach, his face marveling at the way the sun must have danced through my hair, turning it a blazing golden red. I came like that, so easily, his ability to stroke me perfect—a miracle for only knowing my body one night.
After that, there was no hesitation, no long discussion, no doubt, no fear.